


A Tragic Epic

by L122YTorch (orphan_account)



Category: Original Work
Genre: College, Depression, F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-02-26
Updated: 2017-02-25
Packaged: 2018-09-26 23:44:28
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 929
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9932555
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/L122YTorch
Summary: Read me if you wishEat the words if you need themOr starve in silence





	

The campus was breathtakingly beautiful. Warm spring air whispered through the trees and kissed the tulips that had exploded all over the flower beds. Splashes of brilliant red, jovial yellow and burning orange sprang to life as students shed their hoodies and heavy coats.

It should have been a time of rebirth, as spring typically is, but the events in my life during my senior year of college had put me in a dark place. I was lucky I had such good rapport with my professors because I decided to take a solid two week “vacation” from life right in the middle of the semester. 

My grades had always been stellar, I was no stranger to the dean’s list, but I was so off that semester. I lived with people I hated…I wasn’t sure I had majored in the right thing…and I was severely lonely despite being surrounded by friends.

There was one class keeping me there…keeping me sane…giving me something to look forward to. It was an upper level poetry class. 

I had taken a ton of English classes even though it had nothing to do with my major. In fact…I was one fucking class short of being able to double major in it…but I wasn’t about to pay 45k for another semester. Oh well.

I had grown very familiar with blank verse, haikus, ballads, epics, iambic pentameter, sonnets, limericks, sestinas, villanelles and whatever else I could get my hands on. I knew that the greatest of poems were built on imagery, glued together with diction, and housed the reader in whatever feelings that I was trying to elicit. 

I knew where to use enjambments, when I needed an extended metaphor, how internal rhyme seemed somehow more sophisticated than end rhyme, that every word had to be delicately and deliberately chosen…and I knew the real reason I kept taking these classes. Granted, I loved poetry, that’s why I began taking them but…I came for you.

At first I wasn’t necessarily drawn to you, you weren’t just older than me, you were much older than me. But with every lesson, with every glimpse of your intelligence, I grew somehow more enamored. 

Each time I got out of class I’d find myself by your side, talking about life or whatever there was to talk about. I’m not quite sure how…but our schedules synced and I loved seeing your face beneath the bright blue Fort Worth sky. I looked forward to going to class, I longed to hear every criticism, every observation…about my poetry…about my writing or art…about anything.

I was never supposed to be in your universe, but I put myself there because it took the sting away from the life that I couldn’t handle, from the drives that nearly broke me, from the heartbreak that wouldn’t heal. 

I thought you cared. Maybe you did, maybe you didn’t, but I found it immensely satisfying to go back and forth with you, probably being far too ornery as a result of my (admittedly sexual) frustrations. 

But what I wanted with you was what I want with everyone…to matter.

And so every encounter is burned into my brain…rushing breathless up four flights of stairs, late to meet with you about my project, my arms folded over my chest, no make up on, as I tried to recover from the night before. Or the time I showed up in your office, two smoothie’s overflowing in my hands, offering you one. Bumping into you in various campus buildings. Wondering desperately if you wrote poetry…what it would sound like, what it would be focused on. Arguing with you…which was pretty much 100% my fault. I wanted to strip myself of all the weight hanging on my shoulders and dive into your mind, but I just had to settle for class. 

I never felt like I fit in at that school……….ever………one of my greatest regrets is actually going there……but I made it somehow. I was always out of place, I’ve always felt out of place, sitting in the wrong place, born in the wrong time, thinking the wrong thoughts. 

When I walked into your class I was self conscious, easily shocked, a plant that sat far away from the front and tried to disappear. But that wasn’t who I was when I left.

And the only reason I’m sitting here writing this now is because I’m grateful for what I learned, for the fact that I’m writing a children’s book and finding a publisher for my novel. But….every few months my dreams are plagued. 

I’ll lay my head on the soft pillow, feeling the cool breeze from the fan above, dipping into unconsciousness only to wake up in another world. A world where I’m running to class but can never make it, running to a room that’s always empty, rushing to speak to you only to have a door shut in my face or to be pushed away. It makes me wish I wasn’t a pain in the ass, it makes me wish I mattered.

And as the years have passed and I’ve gone from job to job, home to home, from fine to depression, I’ll find myself with a glass of bourbon in my hand, sitting in some club chair in Fort Worth when I visit, still wondering….what makes you tick. Why I could never figure you out. Why I can’t figure me out. 

Who knows…maybe I should write a poem about it.


End file.
